


Those of Us Beneath the Same Sun

by Cricket_In_Form_Of_Cricket



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Also Roman and Remus are literally parts of King Creativity in this, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Discussion of Love, Discussion of Selfishness, Eventual Happy Ending, Implied Self-Harm, King Creativity, King Creativity is in this too, Logic | Logan Sanders Has Panic Attacks, M/M, Nothing To Do With My Other Fics, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Character Death, Past Enemies to Lovers with Logan and King Creativity, Patton performed the Split itself, Possible Existentialism, Rating May Change, Referenced murder, Romantic RemRom, Self-Doubt, Self-Harm in Chapter 7, Sibling Incest, Spoilers for Putting Others First, That's for the enemies to lovers aspect, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, how on earth do i tag him? no clue, kind of slow burn, notes within! (please read them), please read the tags, remlogince, self-deprecation, stream of consciousness in chapter 7, unsure of how to tag him though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:28:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24074437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cricket_In_Form_Of_Cricket/pseuds/Cricket_In_Form_Of_Cricket
Summary: Logan’s a widower– he’s lost his first love already, and he doesn’t ever want to feel that way again. Between the guilt at the fights they had before they got together, and the sorrows at losing the best Side he'd ever known, he doesn’t want to feel anything again. When an unexpected turn comes up in Remus and Roman’s relationship, however, everything starts to change. He feels something that he attributes to disgust.It turns out to not be disgust after all.(Please read the tags!)
Relationships: Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders/Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Logan/Remus/Roman, Logic | Logan Sanders/King Creativity (past)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 28





	1. before you said a word i knew

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome. Please read the tags carefully. This fic contains remrom in it, so if you don't like that, feel free to click the back button now.  
> This has nothing to do with my other fics. I just started to work with a new idea in another fic of mine and thought "hey, what if that went in another direction?"; if you've read that fic, this and that one have nothing to do with each other minus the basic pre-Split timeline.  
> This goes off of the theory that there was one unified Creativity, the King, but that he was split into Roman and Remus. People usually call him Romulus. In this work, that concept is used, but Remus got most of the King's bad memories, while Roman got most of the good.  
> "Enemies to Lovers", with all its implications, was in effect for King Creativity and Logan. Things end well with them, but they were *really* badly fighting before that. This'll be explored in detail; the "do not eat" tag was put in case anyone is uncomfortable by that.  
> In this fic, Patton and Deceit worked together to split King Creativity. Though it was with good intentions, that's going to be in here.  
> and that's pretty much it! Hope you enjoy!

It had been too long since he had lost him to keep on mourning.

Logan had calculated the proper time before people would expect that he’d be all right, and that time came. Patton stopped hiding himself in his room and weeping every time Logan left his. Anxiety stopped leaving packages of food at his doorstep and reminding him to _go on a walk with me, please, Logic, you can't do this forever_. Roman stopped slipping up in the clouds of his own memories and calling him ‘ _darling’,_ and Remus stopped slipping up in the quagmires of his memories and calling Logan ‘ _a sick sadistic bitch for what you did, you know that?’_ It followed the calendar that he had planned out exactly.

He couldn’t help thinking that he should have done something else.

King Creativity (Romulus, his dearest, his sweet, far more lovely than a summer’s day, that combination of traits in the world that matched up perfectly with dopamine serotonin adrenaline, every survival instinct that Logan had fixated upon _him_ ) was gone, after all. Surely there were better things to do than to predict the date when everyone's sympathy would end.

The pieces were still there, though, and it was Logan’s job to pick them up.

  
  
  


“I’m so sorry,” Patton used to say as their customary greeting. What was even the point? _I’m sorry I killed your husband because Deceit told me to._ That only took one apology, and only one instance of Logan saying _it was for Thomas, because every damn thing we do’s for Thomas. Isn’t it?,_ to establish that this going on really wasn’t necessary anymore. That wasn't the case, though. He drew it out- not from any ill intent, but simply because he could not fully understand why Logan wasn't angrier.

Now, only a sorry look accompanied "Good morning" as he put some colourful, sweet-smelling modelling clay on the table.

“I’m not as creative as Roman or Remus,” he said, as if apologizing for not being as creative as the two of them. Then he realized the transgression there and quickly backpedaled. “But Deceit said it’d be good if we– good if _I_ tried to do a new hobby.”

“You are Morality, aren’t you? Not Creativity?”

“I know. But Thomas used to do things like this all the time when he was little. It was wonderful, really. And it makes me feel better. After all, Play-Doh and philosophy go hand-in-hand!”

“You are, as Roman says, ‘indeed something else’.”

“Of course I am! I’m neither of those things, kiddo.” _Kiddo? We’re the same age. Is everyone kiddo to you?_ The answer was yes, of course. Patton gravitated towards the paternal and the childish in a way that could only be him.

“Right, right.”

Patton made a small heart from the modelling clay as Logan drank his coffee. Black, with a flavor shot of strawberry.

“Look,” he said softly, “Roman and Remus told me something today. Something about themselves.”

“Is it private?”

“They’d like to tell you themselves.”

“Why?”

Patton smiled. “It’s not so bad to get used to. Just, just keep an open mind, okay? Regardless of how we feel, they’re happy, and they’re–”

Logan felt the coffee cup slip out of his hands. 

It chipped on the table, leaving a dent in it, and the heavy scent of black coffee spilled everywhere. Onto the silverware, onto the placemat, onto Logan’s lap. Pain spread as the coffee did; with a wave of his hand, he disappeared the stuff, and with another wave, the pain was gone.

Everything was too loud, even though it was perfectly silent. It was as if the usual means of perception had been tired out, rubbing his consciousness raw, leaving him oversensitive to the sound of Patton’s breathing and grave concern, the _whir_ of the computer sitting on the countertop, the sound of songbirds that Patton so loved, the pulse in his own veins. He could hear his own heart throbbing and feel it skip a beat, turning temporarily into a cold thing of steel.

“Oh. Logan, listen– are you too connected, or too disconnected right now?” He only used that voice when something was serious. Was this really that serious?

“Too much–”

“Okay. Do you need something to focus on, or something else?”

Words lost him. He pointed to the basket on the upper shelf, gesturing for something that he kept in there for emergencies.

Within a few seconds, a Rubix cube sat in his hands, though he didn’t remember Patton getting it or scrambling it up. As soon as he had gotten to the ‘white cross’ stage of solving, Patton put a pencil and an old notebook in front of him.

“There. If you need to write it out.”

He gazed at the paper, gave an appreciative nod, and finished solving. From here, it was the most easy kind of challenging there was. Understandable and tangible. Once order had been restored, he reached for the pencil and notebook.

_I’m sorry,_ Logan wrote. _I just thought of something upsetting regarding the two._ When he was done, he fell right back into their old system– finish writing out what you want to say, then tap your finger on the table.

“Was it about him?”

_Yes._ Tap.

“Gosh, I–”

_I know you’re sorry._ Logan stared at the words he just wrote. before continuing writing. _I accept your apology. You did what you thought was best for Thomas. Don’t think my reaction, as irrational as it is, is my way of saying that I don’t forgive you._ Tap.

“It’s perfectly rational,” Patton tried to say in that tone that Logan usually put on when he was trying to make something easy to explain. “It’s a part of feeling better, feeling bad for a while… kind of like how to fix an equation that’s going badly! The solution’s not gonna look real neat.”

_True._ Tap. The sound was drilling into his brain.

“Was it bringing up the two of them…?”

_In a way._

“Do you mind telling me?”

_I think I already know what they’re going to confess._

“Oh. And do you… do you mind?”

Logan’s voice was quiet. “I don't think I should.”


	2. pick-me-up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Logan likes coffee, thinks in code (at times, very literally), and can't help overanalyzing.

Once the words left Logan's lips, he knew he should've been scrambling to clarify, but he didn't.

“...you don’t think you should," Patton repeated slowly.

“Right.”

"All right. I'll... Tell me if you don't want to meet up with them, okay? I don't want a situation where you'd both be uncomfortable. Well, you all, actually-"

"Noted."

Patton didn’t say anything to him after that. He simply gave him one of those looks that said _I know what you think of me_ written all over it and got up to make himself breakfast.

Logan sighed and refilled his coffee, sipping on it. The steady warmth, burning up his tongue, was exactly what he needed.

  
  


Back before, when the most that Thomas knew about coffee was that his parents drank it, Logan began to have a cup or two in the morning.

Sure, Thomas was a bit too young to make a regular habit of drinking the stuff, but the Sides weren’t. They were there to take care of him, after all, until he was old enough to make decisions in confidence; of course they’d be older. As for coffee, it helped Logan focus, go a few more minutes without needing rest. It helped Thomas take him a bit more seriously. It was something adults drank, and Logan wanted to be the adult. 

Either way, there would be occasional mornings– maybe after all possibilities for salvaging a ruined assignment were exhausted, or after Thomas had gotten a bad grade on an exam that Logan should have helped him more with– where a cup of coffee would be waiting for him on the table. His favorite mug, the one he never drank out of anymore, still felt hot to the touch then, and he’d settle down and drink.

  
  


Some Side walked in wearing Roman’s _This [CENSORED RHYME] Fought The Dragon Witch_ shirt, and it very clearly wasn’t Roman. 

His footsteps fell light. He smiled at Patton as the latter walked out with his eggs, fruit salad, and milk. Within a few seconds, he was reaching into the cabinet and grabbing a small container of Nescafe and a spoon. Next came the cups. First a red one, with the crest on it. Then a green one, with some tentacles. Then– 

Remus’ hand froze halfway to the indigo mug that someone had painted flowers on. His fingers clasped shut, but his gaze was still fixed firmly upon the cabinet.

After a few moments, he turned to look at Logan. Within a hasty second, he put his hand back and turned away.

The mug he was reaching for remained in the cabinet, untouched.

 _A mistake,_ his gaze shouted before he said “You’ve got some.”

Logan nodded before he realized that it wasn’t a question.

“How many mugs of coffee have you had today?”

“Five since midnight. Why?”

“Oh my God, get some sleep,” muttered Remus, pouring some milk into one of the cups and sticking it in the microwave.

“It’ll have no adverse effects on Thomas. We are metaphysical.”

 _“Metaphysical_ does not mean _immune to feeling negative effects._ All it means is that we won’t die, not that we don’t get uncomfortable. And usually you’d understand that, TS-84.”

It took a bit for Logan to get the pun. “Oh, you mean the graphing calculator– however, I’m not sure that you’re incorrect on that.”

Once the milk was hot, Remus pulled it out of the microwave and mixed in some cocoa powder. Pouring hot water into the red cup, he hummed and added some instant coffee.

Logan turned back to his coffee. Out of his peripheral, he saw Remus gazing back at him. It took a conscious effort to divert his mind down that particular tunnel and focus on the fact that he was making coffee for Roman so brazenly, as if he had no shame with what he was going to admit to later today.

_(You don’t really think he’s shameless.)_

“Know how long it’ll take for a body to die of dehydration?” asked Remus, adding a sugar-cube to the coffee.

“Oh. Well, we are _Sides,_ but for us to start experiencing extremely adverse effects, I’d estimate, given our current level of hydration, 2.76–”

“Think fast!”

“I always– _hey!”_ Logan barely managed to catch the bottle of water before it hit him in the head.

“Reset the clock, Nerdy Wolverine. Take a nap or something. What had you staying up so late anyways?”

“Something irrelevant to the current conversation, I can tell you.”

“You always think so fast,” complained Remus. “It’s not fair.”

“It’s not like your wit’s particularly dull.”

“I’m not the pointiest knife in the stash. ... I missed the perfect opportunity to say that I ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed. This conveys my point!” Remus sprawled himself out, belly-down, on the counter. “It's not the first time something hasn't gone my way today. You would not believe the unbelievable sacrifices I’ve made to appease Mr. Morality the Morbid, or the good old cold-blooded cur. That's Deceit, in case you didn't get it.”

“Why yes, I wouldn’t believe the sacrifices,” Logan said with a smile. “You said they were unbelievable.”

He smiled back.

The unshakable feeling that it wasn’t _him_ smiling washed over Logan. (Or rather, he willed it over himself.)

Remus thought for a second before pushing himself off of the counter. “Well, got to hurry. The coffee’s gonna get cold.”

Logan sighed, putting his head in his hands and fighting some lingering sense of sickness back. “Yeah. Yeah, sure, go ahead.”

The Duke picked up the mugs— first, the green one, then the red one with such a capacity for gentleness that it almost broke Logan just to look at— before turning back to Logan.

“You should really take more care of yourself,” he said softly. “Don’t wanna end up a Dictionary Downer, right?”

He stepped out. Logan was alone again.  
  


None of the Sides had really engaged in romance ever since The Incident, and was it really a surprise? Logan… well, no-one was making a theory with varying levels of likeliness as to why _he_ didn’t. Patton and Deceit were still shaken to their cores by the very ideas of what they had done. Virgil wasn’t too keen on it.

But Remus and Roman? Did it _have_ to be those two? Aside from the very obvious question, they were both so narcissistic! And had their heads stuck in the clouds so much that a part of Logan’s very description as a Side was to keep them grounded! And self-destructive, and _familiar!_

Did it have to be those two, who would remind him every day of…

 _You don’t know that they’re going to announce that they’ve been having a relationship,_ Logan told himself. _Maybe they’re going to announce that they’ve done something about a new video. Or that they’re working on a new Shakespearean adaptation except the majority of the cast is comprised of… I… It can’t be that._

Thinking about this wasn't good for his nap, anyways. He wasn't entirely sure why he was taking Remus' advice, but the water was gone, a headache he had was beginning to subside, and the couch of the common-room could have been more uncomfortable.

Roman swung open the door. Without remembering to close it, he hummed to himself as he crossed the breadth of the room. Logan didn’t even need to look up to recognize his footsteps.

“Remus already made his hot chocolate and your coffee,” Logan muttered. “Check in your rehearsal room.”

“Oh, by the golden rays of Hyacinthus, my beauty sleep has failed me! I was planning on surprising him with a… _kind_ gesture!”

“Any particular reason?” _(That was cruel, putting him on the spot like that.)_

“Why, yes! He is a human person, I have discovered, and deserves kindness!”

“A meta–”

“Yes, yes, a metaphysicwhatisit.”

 _That cannot be the only reason._ “Right.” Logan sat up and was able to actually take a good look at Roman. The resemblance to the King wasn't quite uncanny, but it was still a bit beyond the fact that they all resembled Thomas.

“I swear, you think in code," said Roman. "Not that it's a bad thing!"

“That’s unfair. Planning out what you do in accordance with a scenario is a perfect way to make logical decisions.”

“Ugh, fine, Calculator Man. Look, I…” He was staring at the ground, his shoulders slightly drooping, swinging his foot while trying to make himself look absentminded. “I asked Patton to tell you about something?”

“That you wanted to tell me something yourselves.”

“Yes! Well… I decided that perhaps it wasn’t best if we did that, for circumstances that I don’t need to explain. Unless you want me to, of course."

"No, it's perfectly adequate if you don't do that."

"So, I was thinking, why not hold a meeting? We could invite Deceit and Virgil and Patton— if the Tangerine Man, that complacent crisis, will let himself out of his room, he can come too!”

“Um.” That didn't sound like a great idea, but Logan really wasn't in a position to argue. A private meeting would be worse.

“Are you coming, yay or nay? Do the eyes have it?”

“It’s technically _yea_ or nay, and it’s do the _ayes_ have it. And I suppose...”

Well, what did he suppose?

Don’t go? He’d disappoint them (he had a system for this, he had planned it out. if: disappoint, then: turn left, proceed five rooms, apologize, if: apology not accepted, then: _not found)._ And he wasn’t sure where that would leave.

Go? Well, he’d feel… no he wouldn’t _feel,_ he’d— (if: unhappiness, then read: _it doesn’t make sense to be unhappy for them,_ broadcast: altruism; broadcast: friendship; broadcast: you’re a sick piece of shit to want to ruin this for him aren’t you)

_Not him. You wouldn't be ruining this for him, he doesn't exist anymore._

_Get it through your head. Again. For the umpteenth time._

_You're done._

“If it's important to you, Roman? Yes, I’ll go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to be honest i never drink coffee like Ever. much like my version of remus, i'm more of a hot cocoa person. also i am now very tempted to make a shirt that says "this censored rhyme fought the dragon witch"  
> School stuff's coming up so updates might not be as quick, but this entire story's outlined and I'm really looking forward to sharing it with you all. I hope you like reading it even half as much as I love writing it!


	3. (un)welcome-home party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Logan isn't sure what he expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> notes: quick oc mention, you don't need to know who he is, but he's my seventh orange side. my best friend really likes him so that's why he's here for a second.  
> Spoilers for Putting Others First!! Also, general Remus bringing up weird thoughts.  
> Also, there's a scene of a bad reaction to an admitted relationship. If this makes you uncomfortable, please use caution if you read.

“He won’t like it,” muttered Remus, all the colour gone from his face.

“Never you worry, sugarplum,” said Roman, with an expression and a grandiose pet-name that made it astoundingly clear he was worrying. “I’ll. I’ll take care of it if it goes wrong.”

“We’ll have to explain to everyone.”

“C’mon, dear, you were fine with explaining your… endeavors to them.”

“Talking about making dioramas with bones we find is one thing! No-one _ever_ accepted that. The moral judgment ended with ‘that’s gross’. But…”

“If you want to back out, you can. No shame. I trust Patton enough that he’ll keep his nose out of things!”

“I know we can. But I don’t want to.” He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Okay. Ready.”

* * *

Logan tried to ignore the setup of the conversation. Some snacks sat on the table, everyone settled into the couches in the common room. Deceit was swallowing a boiled egg whole. (Well, he _was_ a snake.) 

Logan wasn’t very hungry. At least, he wasn’t in the mood to eat.

“We’re here for that?” asked Logan, turning to the Side at his side.

“You’ve figured out what the meeting was for?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t have to be here. You’re the only one who doesn’t have to be, if you don’t want to. And if I were you,” whispered Patton, “I _would_ leave, given everything that happened at coffee-time.”

“I want to,” he whispered back. “It’s just–”

“Oh, here we go, we _totally_ appreciate being completely vague and nondescript when all of us are present,” said Deceit, eyeing a second egg. “Who summoned these, anyway? They're _the opposite of_ perfect.”

“I did!” Patton grinned, pointing to himself. Well, at the very least, clarity..? “And actually, I made them, not summoned them. See, Roman and Remus have a big announcement, which means a special occasion.”

Virgil put down his half-eaten scone. “What could those two have to announce, anyways? And why does Logan get to walk out if he wants? I don’t wanna be here.”

“Eh…” Patton shook his head. “Here, Logan, really, if you don’t want to be here, you can just–”

Logan clicked his tongue and stared ahead. “I’ve made a promise to be there for them.”

“But what if it makes you upset to hear it?”

“I’m _Logic._ I don’t get upset.”

Patton opened his mouth to say something like _of course you do,_ but he was cut off when Remus and Roman came in.

“Hey, all of you, it’s me, the _original_ disaster,” said Remus with a grin.

“Greetings, friends. The, er. The prince has arrived.”

“Yay!” Patton smiled. “Okay, everyone, let’s listen to what they have to say!”

It was a trick of the light, the way they appeared next to each other.

Looking at the two of them was like looking at a stereogram, where if you slid your vision out of focus just so, a different image would appear. Romulus could almost be seen, if one was familiar enough with him. Roman had his broad shoulders and his slight plumpness, Remus had his face and hands, and… actually, the rest of him was lost. It wasn’t that convincing of an illusion.

Logan could almost feel the soft fabric of their sleeve-cuffs, could almost hear his worn voice shouting _Go back to the real you, Romulus, it’s not too late!_ But then Remus had started crying and Deceit had slapped him, hard. Nothing compelled him now to convince them to be anything other than themselves.

As for the announcement, though…

“Well,” said Roman, the words hanging in the air for too long, “we have something important to say.”

He stuck out his hand awkwardly in the air. For the fraction of centuries it took Remus to grasp it, everyone held their breath.

“It started a few months ago,” he said, “but we didn’t want everyone to know, due to obvious reasons.” He cast a sad glance at Logan, who didn’t need it. “So, er, Remus, do you want to–”

“This guy and I are dating,” said Remus, in a facsimile of his usual style.

Logan felt himself sink into his chair.

“Yep! You are.” Patton glared at everyone else with a fire that Logan hadn’t ever been able to forget he had possessed. “And in fact, I think that it’s a _wonderful thing,_ and that we all might have our own opinions, but we should strive to be understanding _._ Don’t you?”

“Yeah,” said Roman breathlessly. “Yeah, that.”

Silence greeted them. Logan watched the clock; the seconds hand went from the twelve to the eight without anyone saying a word.

Virgil, who looked like someone had chopped up his favorite hoodie in front of him, managed to whisper “Why.”

“Because he’s cute and smart and funny and listens to me and I listen to him,” said Remus simply. “What kinda question–”

“Aren’t you two brothers?”

“I mean, we’re both parts of the same creativity?” Roman shrugged. “If we are brothers, it’s not _just_ that.”

Virgil tilted his head, thought for a few moments, and said “I mean… it’s gonna take me a long time to get used to that, but you got used to me not being Paranoia, so.” He straightened his back, curling up his legs a bit more. “I’m fine with it, or whatever.”

“Virgil, you emo angel,” said Remus, grinning with a bit more sincerity. “And you? Deceit, what do you think?”

“Oh, Janus is fine. Unless you’re going to laugh.”

“Sorry about that.” Roman reached out a hand. “I was scared, and I..”

Janus shook it. “I absolutely _adore_ the idea that something like this has been tempering your confidence in us.” He rolled his eyes.

“Be nice.” Patton seemed to bristle. “It took them a lot of courage to admit this.”

“Right, right. My, er, apologies. If this social construct brings you joy, then go ahead, have some fun with each other.”

“Done,” said Remus flatly. Roman responded by sticking his tongue out. “Now it’s time for Alex, the Lord of Orange! Complacency, my dear friend–”

“He’s not here,” said Patton, only to be interrupted by a tangerine-toned book falling off the bookshelf.

“Okay!” Remus walked over, looking at the title. _The Approval._ “Ugh, you could have just appeared, but much appreciated.”

“Well,” said Patton, practically boring holes in Logan’s side with his glare, “that’s pretty much every–”

“Logan."

He jerked his head up so painfully, he wondered if he had twisted something. Everyone was staring at him. 

Roman cleared his throat. “I’d really... Well, we'd really..." He glanced at Remus, who nodded. “...like your opinion.” _Your blessing._ “So, er, if you have any thoughts, we’d really love–”

 _I’m happy for you_ would have been the correct thing to say. Instead, this entire scenario was marching towards a foregone conclusion. Something horrible rose up within him, some horrible feeling of _stop_ and _this isn’t working,_ but all he could say was–

“How could you think I’d be all right with this?”

Shit.

Virgil swung over to look at him. “L, it’s probably time that you take–”

“No, I mean it.”

“Because _you’re_ the most important Side here?” asked Janus. “No-one else’s feelings matter?”

Logan groaned. “That’s not what I mean.”

“I’m sorry!” said Roman, walking over and operating on instinct that only Romulus could have, because no-one else would have known that he wasn’t angry, he was sad. Of course, to Remus, the distinction didn’t matter. “Truly, Logan, I’m sorry, I thought you wouldn’t care.” _Thought you'd understand._

“It was just.... it was a mistake of me to stay here. I’m– I’m going to go.”

He sunk out before anyone else could say a word.

_“Why,”_ half-cried, half-shouted Patton when he finally fought his way into Logan's room, “did you not just leave _before_ they said that?! That’s why I told you at breakfast! You already figured it out! Why go?”

“I don’t know what came over me. The best thing to do would have been to stay put and let people respond as they would, but I didn’t expect to have an irrational response.”

“It was an _emotional_ response. People have those sometimes.”

“I don’t.”

Patton groaned. “In the episodes _alone,_ you’ve objected to the use of the word ‘infinitesimal’. You’ve eaten a thing of jelly and sung about its deliciousness. You threw a paper and hit Roman’s puppet form in the eye. When Remus threatened to attack you, you had to struggle to stay proper. When Thomas called you ‘cool’, you nearly started crying.”

“Oh. I mean, I…”

“I dunno what the logical thing to do is, I never do, but wouldn’t it have been the _nicer_ thing if you just admitted to yourself that it wasn’t something you wanted to see?”

Logan shut his eyes. That was true… it would’ve been the logical thing, too. Anything to avoid the two of them looking at him like that again, like they would be broken into pieces if they had to endure another second, and they didn’t stop enduring and they didn’t get the dignity of breaking down.

“It would’ve been kinder to them,” whispered Logan.

“And kinder to yourself. You think it’s gross, don’t you? I know you said that wasn’t the problem, but is it actually...”

Was that his feeling? Was it simply found the two together unpleasant to the disposition and to the sensibilities?

“Yes,” Logan said, because it should have been the correct answer. “Forgive me if I find it highly suspect.”

Patton groaned. “The problem isn’t that you find it weird.” _He was right, it wasn’t the problem._

“Don’t think badly of me,” Logan pleaded. “I really… I wanted so badly to support him. I mean, them. But now I… I'm experiencing something, and the best approximation would be feeling horrible for reacting the way I did.”

“Kiddo, I don’t think badly of you, but. I mean, it was pretty uncomfy what happened back there..”

“I’m going to try to make this right, okay?”

“All right. But I don’t know how to help you.”

* * *

“Well,” said Remus that night, “it could’ve gone better, dear, but it could’ve gone far worse.”

“Could it?” murmured Roman.

“Yes,” cried the Duke as he settled next to him in bed, adjusting his peignoir and tunic before getting under the blanket. “Dear, don’t let one opinion drag us down! Patton was excited for us, wasn’t he? And Virgil and Janus! Heck, even old Orange let us know he didn’t give a shit!”

“I know, but… I feel like his was the only one that really mattered out of all of them.”

Remus sighed. “You still have the nice memories, don’t you?”

“I could never let them go.” Roman smiled, nuzzling into Remus’ embrace (and he wrapped his arms tight). “I just hoped he’d react differently, that’s all.”

“I know. I did, too. He didn’t mean anything personal by it, though.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, put it this way. I have more than enough memories from good old Romulus to know when TS-84 means us to take something personally.” Remus sighed. “And I don’t think he’s grossed out over the ‘brothers’ thing at all.”

“What...? Remus, I know that we don't often think about it, it's just who we are, but-”

“It isn’t that. There’s something else. And I don't think it's just about the Romulus thing, either.”

“How do you know?”

“My dearest precious Prince of Pestilence, I’m the Duke! True honesty at its most raw and unfiltered. And... well, I have the not-so-nice memories from him.”

Logan, far away, was snapping himself into his sleep-clothes before turning to gaze at a picture of the King, wondering if his fidelity was worth anything, if it could even be said to be fidelity anymore.

He wasn't used to feeling. He wasn't used to it, did not like it, no sir, ma'am, or nonbinary gentry. He was _Logic,_ the opposite of feelings! He had done his best to not feel ever since... well, ever since _then._

This feeling had to be disgust. It was the only thing that made sense. He had his time to mourn, and he had his time to swear off anything besides the calm, sure knowledge of knowing.

“I know him. I know what he's like, I remember when we'd argue and when we'd fight, and when I... or when _we...._ told him about icky things, like dead bugs or bleeding teeth. I've seen him disgusted, I know how he reacts when he's disgusted, and that wasn't it.”

No other explanation, Logan told himself, was even worth considering.

“Trust me, Roman," the Duke murmured, holding his lover in his arms as tightly as he could. _“Please_ trust me when I say that it wasn't his problem with us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, tsym! :)


	4. come up with something.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Logan practices the fine art of dreaming and apologies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: some slightly unpleasant thought mentions, references to injury/a bad history between two characters.

Logan never dreamt.

Other Sides (besides Roman and Remus, of course) probably could do so, it was just a very rare occasion. At least, they never _talked_ about it often enough for it to be construed as anything other than rare. And Logan certainly didn’t dream.

He used to, with him. 

Royal regalia. Black velvet, gold trim, a cape of silver lace, a crown.

Tall and plump. Such kind eyes, such nice hands. His beauty was unrivaled. Even Logan could acknowledge it, back when they still fought daily and exchanged harsh words more often than _hello_.

He spoke with such a lovely levity, saying horrible things that Thomas should not have known about. He laughed until the point of tears and giggled when he was done sobbing, but when Logan decided to put all aside and speak to him about something that was bothering Thomas, he had the sensation overcome him that there would be none better in the world to trust with anything. He took the serious things seriously, but he was quick to laugh at himself in a way that either set Logan at ease or had him wondering if his fellow Side was even happy at all.

Scatterbrained. Not unintelligent, but prone to forgetfulness. The distinction drove him mad, when he tried to tell Patton that _I know what I’m saying, just be patient… I think this way, I wonder this thing._

His backpack was filled with notebooks, animal bones, crayons, dead cicadas, and sweet treats. In the middle of meetings, he’d pull them out and start drawing.

There really should not have been a good reason to hate him.

It was inevitable, he told himself, absolutely inevitable for him to feel this way towards the antithesis (a word that he found while looking through the dictionary a few days ago) to what his job was as a Side.

So it didn’t hurt, really, when Romulus would scream at him and he’d scream back. No guilt remained when Logan shouted at him over things that really weren’t worth shouting about.

Not at all.

“Do you ever regret it?” he had asked Romulus, back when there was a miasma of anxiety around the entire Mindscape that something would happen to him. Thinking back on it, there was something else, too, a cloud of something indefinable that told Logan that something was off.

“No,” said Romulus, without having to ask what Logan meant. “I don’t regret anything about it.”

“...Do you think he’ll do it? He won’t, he’s– he’s nice, and he’s caring, and he’s–”

“Oh, he’ll do it.” Romulus took a sip of his drink. With some worry, Logan realized that he couldn’t read the label. "He's Morality, it's part of his job to protect Thomas. And if what they're talking about will help Thomas..."

“I won’t let it happen.”

“Of course you won’t let it happen, but if he _does_ go through with it, it’s not your fault.”

Logan smiled. (That wasn't right. He didn't smile when he told him that, not really.)

Romulus smiled back. He had too many teeth. His hands were cold when he grabbed onto him, when they pulled into a kiss it was too much heat, and when Logan walked away, something was holding him back, something was begging him to stay before he lost him forever-

  
  
  


Logan woke up in a cold sweat.

“I don’t dream,” he said to the wall in an obvious lie, given what he had just gone through. The wall didn’t say anything back. Of course it didn’t. It was made of imagined plywood and insulation, neither aspect of which had mouths or the ability to communicate, so he didn't know why he expected that saying it aloud would make him feel better.

Stroking his hands over the fabric of his blankets, he was able to fully place himself in the current moment, which he really never had a problem doing before.

He had to be fine. For the love of everything on earth, he just had to be.

  
  


* * *

Roman settled in for the common room after consulting with Thomas about whether it was best to make lemon poppy seed scones, work on a script, or sleep in (the decision was none of the above; a ten-minute walk before chores was ultimately decided upon as the priority, with some help from Virgil).

Janus looked at him strangely when he went into the room.

“So, _Roman,_ it’s good to see the benedict of the hour,” the snake drawled.

“Benedict–?”

“A newly committed person who has long been a bachelor,” offered up Logan as he rose up from the ground. Roman shuddered; sure, they _could_ do that, but that didn’t mean he _had_ to! The door was right there.

“Thanks for the apology,” said Janus, glaring at him.

“That’s– that’s a falsehood, I didn’t apologize yet.” He gazed at Roman. “Er, will an apology help mitigate your concerns? I’d hate to think that I left you feeling unpleasant, but at the same time, it’d be worse if you didn’t want to hear it–”

“It’s fine,” said Roman.

Janus clicked his tongue. “Said with the confidence of a brioche-eating monarch when the proletariat’s readying the guillotine.”

“Woe to the Republic,” murmured Remus, popping in and making a determined gesture to Logan.

“No, I mean! Really, it’s okay, Logan, it’s… it’s not like we were expecting _everyone_ to respond with 50-page manuscripts of blessings!” Roman tried to smile. “I mean it. Yeah.”

Janus and Remus took one glance at each other before determining that this conversation was probably best done alone.

“Babe, how would you feel if Janus and I went for a walk on The Path?” asked Remus, to which Roman nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good. I added a hook-needle blossom plant. Maybe you can take a gander at it?”

“That sounds dangerous to all kinds of waterfowl, actually.” Logan summoned a vocab card, looking at it and feeling his cheeks grow warm when he realized the idiom. “Oh..”

Remus shrugged. “On the list of priorities, there are _different_ things to feel bad about than not getting an idiom, Logan.”

“Look, I’m– I needed to say something to both of you–”

“Eh, no hard feelings for my sake, but trust me, it’s Roman you’d better talk to about that.” 

Logan couldn’t tell if he was glaring at him with anger or gazing at him with disappointment, but either way, he let out a sigh of relief when the Duke turned away. 

“In the meantime! I’d love to show our dear splendid snake the misdemeanor-daffodils!” He grinned, ignoring Janus’ whisper of _what the hell are misdemeanor-daffodils?_ as the two of them sank out.

“They’re not dangerous,” Logan called out to Janus, “they’re just flowers... and he’s gone. Pleasant.”

“How do you know about the misdemeanor-daffodils?” asked Roman, tilting his head.

“Uh. Well, it was… Romulus imagined them up one day, and–”

“Oh! Oh, right, the… the flowers and the fountain... “ He half-smiled. “Gosh, I didn't think that I'd recall it! One of them couldn’t stop screaming to you about how Mom had forgotten to signal when we turned into the Publix parking lot.”

“Right. Er, do you still have the scar from cutting it–?”

Roman smiled, tugging down the hem of his sock and pointing to a light little stab-mark. “I really needed to be more careful with putting away weapons.”

“Absolutely you do.”

“It did look absolutely _lovely_ in your hair, though.”

Logan resisted the urge to smile before taking a deep breath in, making his face appear gravely serious, and preparing his apology.

“Look, about yesterday.. I knew what was coming. That’s why I really wanted to apologize. I knew what you were going to say before you said it, and I– I still stuck around–”

Taking one look at Roman, he knew that the moment of levity a few seconds ago was completely shattered. He couldn't read that expression- hatred? Mistrust? Sorrow? Something told him that it wasn't worth reading, that the most important thing to do was to just listen to what he had to say.

“And you didn’t sink out,” muttered Roman.

“I know I should’ve. It was the correct thing to do, to prevent from causing you pain, but… I wanted to be there for you. Honestly. And I thought I could handle it.”

Roman exhaled. “I mean… thank you for being there. Or, at least trying to be. It didn’t go well, like, at all, and I don’t think I _can_ accept your apology yet. It stung.”

“I understand.”

“However.” Roman straightened up his spine. “I appreciate that Misery-Webster himself admitted that mistakes were made, and that you wanted to be okay with me and him being together. Really. That means a lot.”

“Right.” Logan sighed. “Look, I… If the two of you need anything, and I do mean _anything,_ just let me know, all right?”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“I know I don’t need to. I’d like to.”

The Prince didn’t say anything for a few moments before biting his lip. “Honestly, Logan? I think we just need some _time.”_


	5. context clues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patton, Remus, and Janus reflect. The former does so on his own; the latter two chat. Remus, in the height of his emotion, might make a mistake and push things a bit too far... might.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: The implied self-harm tag is in full effect for this chapter. Please be careful.  
> General notes: In my canon, before Putting Others First, Deceit's name was Donatien (pronounced doh-na-syan/doh-na-tyan, accent on the last syllable). Here, I'm using it as his nickname. Also, snakes don't cry, which is why he has a hard time doing it.  
> Brief side note: did you know that 'intrulogince' on ao3 is a synonym for 'loginceit'? I'm not sure why (loginceit is valid of course but these are very different ships!), so thus, the 'remlogince' tag is used here.
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading.

Patton wasn’t exactly supposed to give opinions on matters like this one. He was the one who messed up, the one who overstepped his bounds, the one who, with one swing of a scythe, made the King into the twain.

He itched absentmindedly at his forearm before going to prepare supper.

He trusted everyone to summon their own food, but making it instead of summoning it just added so much love to the experience. Logan was a passionate Side, even if he didn’t want to admit it, but oftentimes his passion for work meant that he needed reminders to take care of himself. With this in mind, Patton cut up some bell peppers and chicken, throwing it into the pan and adding copious amounts of lime juice. There. Now, that on a bed of rice would be _splendid,_ but he needed more peppers.

Holding the knife in his hand, a memory came up, unwelcome and unbidden.

  
  
  


It had been three nights since the Split. Patton had been putting away a sharp thing in his cubby-drawer when he saw Roman standing in the hallway. He was wearing a tunic, bloomers, and a peignoir, everything slightly too big on him.

“Where’s Logan?” he whispered, in a voice that wasn’t his own.

“Honey, he’s in his room.”

“I want to spend the night with my husband.”

“Roman–”

“...Right. That is who I am, right? Not Romulus..? I can’t remember.”

 _It’s my fault. I’m so sorry, whoever you are, whoever can hear me._ “Right. You’re Roman. And Logan is in his room right now. I can ask to see if he wants to talk with you, though?”

“No, it’s. It’s okay.” He wiped his face with his hand. “I know–wait. Patton, are you bleeding?”

“It’s nothing. Go to bed.”

“But–”

“It’ll be okay. Go to bed.”

  
  
  


Well, no need thinking about it now.

Patton continued his work, humming to himself as he chopped up the rest of the chicken.

Really, though, Logan had reacted unkindly, but it was okay. Well, not okay that he reacted that way, but now it was okay because he was doing his best to make up for it. What even prompted him to behave that way, anyways…?

_You’re forgetting something. You’re forgetting about when he was sitting across on that very table, and saying something, and..._

There was one thing that made sense, and Patton didn’t like where it was going.

* * *

Remus laughed, darting from one end of The Path to another and pointing out all the cool plants that The Imagination had to offer.

“Ooh! That’s a shrinking violet… it shrinks. And these are called Black-Eyed Susans, and these ones are thistles, and this is a camellia, like poor Marguerite's favorite!”

“Interesting.” Honestly, Janus had helped Thomas cheat on the test for _Lady of the Camellias._ “Look, I’m very sorry, really, Remus.”

“‘Bout what?”

“That Logan responded with such harshness. Usually he’s such a kind man, I don’t understand–”

“It isn’t unexpected. He and I haven’t always gotten along,” admitted Remus.

“Ah, right, because I remember that you and Logan always try to kill each other.”

“I… I _did_ threaten to tear off his– nevermind. But other than threats to shove sensory organs up his nose–”

“Other than what?”

“Other than that, you don’t remember? He’d make fun of me so horribly, I’d lash back, or maybe it was the other way round, but we’d fight–”

Janus groaned. “That’s what he said about _him,_ and you’re not him.”

Remus dropped the camellia he was holding. With a motion so smooth that it took Janus a second to process it, his eyes met his, and he was so close that if Janus even slightly moved his hand forward, it would fall against Remus.

_“What?”_

“Oh, right, because you’re _obviously_ the King, and you two have the same personalities you did back then.” Janus groaned. “It’s pretty strange how Logic hasn’t changed since childhood, and neither did you, though you were _literally split in half!”_

“Wait, you’re talking to me as if I forgot that minor detail, the absolute worst experiences of my life! His life! I don't know!”

“God, your diction’s going to _kill_ me, but you’re saying you’d have the exact same dynamic with Logan, meaning that it’s not at all surprising that he reacted the way he did. Not at all hurtful. It’s of course _expected_ that you two would fight.”

“I never said it wasn’t hurtful.”

“Of course you didn’t, you just said it was expected. Totally different.”

“All right, all right! It stung like a million bees on a lymph node, but I’m giving him some charity here.”

“Right, but shouldn’t you give the benefit of kindness to the people who deserve it?”

“You know, I don’t think you _want_ me to answer that question,” Remus said, with more harshness and less levity than Janus liked.

The babbling creek kept on babbling. A splash was heard as a rock fell in.

“Er, why wouldn’t I…?”

“Lemme put it this way. If you’re so eager to bring up Romulus like it doesn’t mean anything, and you didn’t use to be him, you need to be ready to _talk_ about him. Get it?”

“Er.”

“Patton had a little help when it came to the old....” He traced his index finger down his own face, to his solar plexus. “The Split.”

Janus tried to say something. Nothing came.

Remus’ expression changed, from a cold schadenfreude to something much more empathetic. “Shit. You’re crying?”

“No, I’m a snake… I don’t. It’s impossible for us to.” Well, that last part was a lie. Indeed, he wasn’t on the verge of tears yet, but he was rather close.

There was a field of flowers to lie in; Janus felt a soft pressure on the back of his head. Turning his cheek to one side, he saw the sky with one eye and violet violet violet with the other. On the other side, Remus stared, trying out the right thing to say by mouthing words before giving them a voice.

“Remus, you fucking idiot,” Remus finally said, “it’s never an appropriate time to bring up The Split.”

“No, that wasn’t relevant _at all,_ we were just talking about him and I of course brought him up with _unimaginable_ poise and dignity.”

“I’m real sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“It’s all right. That kind of needed to be brought up.”

He exhaled. “I’ve forgiven you.”

“You have?”

“Yeah! Of course! I don’t know what everyone else wants to do, but heck, I forgave you the second that you looked at me again after. Fuck, if it wasn’t for the Split, I never would’ve met Roman!”

“...You know I didn’t mean for that to happen to him. To you. We had hoped that… we had hoped that we’d simply separate what we thought was bad.”

Remus shut his eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was a noticeably different cadence.

“So I’m the worst thing about me, huh?”

“If that’s true, you’re not the most vibrant Creativity us Others could have asked for, you’re not the man that Roman fell in love with, you’re not the shining star of chaos, and I’m not lying next to you.”

“Heh! Speaking in Lies never felt so affirming. Wish I could do that. No, but what do you think he thinks of me? Logan, I mean.”

“I don’t know,” admitted Janus. “I have no idea _what_ he thinks of you.”

“So what’s the problem, _Donatien?”_

He settled down, not objecting to the nickname. “It’s setting yourself up for more hurt.”

“I know. But I think his heart’s in the right place, and… I dunno, I’ll just try it. If he’s really still iffy about it, then we’ll leave it where it lies.”

“But about Roman?”

“Look, I love him–”

“ _Really_ , I couldn’t have guessed that you’d care for your brother...Er, other half? Lover? Soulmate?”

“Just say Roman and save yourself some time.”

“It’s obvious that you love him, isn’t it?”

“If what happened bothers him so much that it really fucks up how he deals with Logan, I’m gonna support him, but if that’s not the case here, we’re entitled to our different feelings on the matter. Just like he doesn’t like thinking about injecting hydrogen peroxide into our pasta to make Fresh-Pasta. I hate the idea that they're fighting right now, I do, and while I'll support my boyfriend, it just isn't a great situation.”

Janus tried to pretend it made sense.

“And look,” Remus said in a low voice, “I… I know this is private, but what the hell, I don’t have much of a filter. And you’re good at keeping shit away from people that don’t know. I don’t even think _Roman_ or Virgil know, and to be honest? I don't think I _should_ tell them.”

The Duke, the very _embodiment_ of uncomfortable honesty, not telling his own partner something? The very idea was intriguing, but Janus decided it was best to play it off. “Cool, secrets. Not like I’m hated for those or anything.”

“Look, if you want to judge Logan fairly, I think that you really need to know this, but you've got to promise not to tell anyone. Do you want to know?”

Janus, in spite of himself, nodded.

* * *

Remus was scuttling in the crawlspace, feeling around in the dark for some snacks he had hidden. Good stuff, too! Soft, stale chips, some offal, and soda were among his favorite things. To prevent anyone revoking them, he’d stored them in the crawlspace under the living room, but Patton and Logan were in the room above, arguing like all hell.

“He looks a lot like him,” Patton was saying, “but you’ve got to understand, he’s not him.”

“Of course he’s not him. They’re two entirely different organisms. Er, three.”

Remus stopped scuttling on his belly, instead turning so that he was face-up. Cedar planks stared back at him.

“And you’re sure you’re feeling–”

“I’m not _feeling._ I don’t… I don’t do that. I’m not going to do that. They’re just different people.”

“Yep! Charming and lovable in their own way.”

Logan sighed. Something about it seized Remus’ memory, bringing back a long-ago night, when the fighting ended and something else began.

“Right,” he said at last. “Charming.”


	6. three of a kind (pocket pair)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A reconciliation isn't done easily. Janus gets to congratulate Roman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> notes: fighting/hasty reconciliation (dead dove: do not eat), brief alcohol mention, a heated scene and implied intimacy off-screen (however, there is no actual explicit material). please use caution while reading if any of this is pertinent to you.

The reconciliation hadn’t been an easy one. It came in stage after stage after stage, but the first one was over a meeting before Thomas had to go to school.

Romulus had settled in the chair at the end of the table, nursing his wounded ego by casting upset glances at Logan. The latter hadn’t decided how to carry himself, but opted for expressing something between pride and indignation.

“So,” said Romulus, “are you going to apologize?”

“Of course not,” muttered Logan. “I’m just here to deliver the report that Thomas has due in a few hours, that’s nothing to apologize for.”

“Nothing to apologize for?” With his right hand, he traced a shape that was vaguely recognizable as obscene into the mahogany table. “Just yesterday. You called me useless, you presented me and my kingdom with a litany of hatred that none could hope to rival, and then you dared to call me—?”

“How did you find out?”

“Patton _talks,_ you know. You make such a huge deal about how _we're adults, we're Thomas' guardians, why don't we act like it,_ but then you go off and do that!”

“But Patton promised he’d never tell a soul… Could it have been someone else?”

“Oh, sure, because Fear has a history of _imitating_ Patton and lying to my face about what he does and doesn’t hear.” He rolled his eyes. “Look, just explain yourself and I won’t be as angry as I have every right to be.”

“All right. Well… If your kingdom is actually a _kingdom, Your Majesty,_ you’ve done a very poor job of showing it.”

“I know, I…” He gazed at the ground. “It’s a game of pretend to you, isn’t it, from the outside-looking-in?”

“You know it yourself.”

Romulus raised his gaze. It was nothing short of fire.

“If I am not a king,” he said, his voice stone, “then you’re not a teacher. Am I wrong on this count?”

“I can’t remember a time you were correct on anything.”

He rolled his eyes. “What is it about the idea that you did something wrong that’s causing you this much trouble?”

“It’s not that,” Logan almost whispered.

_“Then?”_

“It’s just… Patton told me something. He told me that you had been crying.”

“Fuck.”

_“Romulus!_ Where did you learn that word?”

“Someone shouted it at someone else, I guess.” Romulus groaned. “How did he find out? I asked him to not tell anyone else!”

“He said that you were crying because of something that I said to you, but… that’s got to be untrue, I don’t appreciate you telling me that it’s my fault.”

“It’s true as can be.”

“Romulus, look at me.”

“Done.”

“Did I hurt you that badly?”

“Take a wild guess.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I just _did!_ I know that you wouldn’t keep your mouth shut if I upset you, but… oh, God, did I do the same?”

“Language, and yes, a few times.”

Romulus sighed, taking his crown off. “Shit.”

“I can’t argue with that.” Logan sighed. Now it was his turn to stare at the whorls and grains of reddish wood. He absentmindedly fiddled with the edge of the placemat.

The King wasn’t saying anything.

“Look, it hurt your feelings, and I take full responsibility for it, but I have the right to talk with Patton about things privately,” he said finally.

“What’s confusing you about it?”

“You can simply imagine away the problems in your kingdom, you don’t have to just complain about it and upset him. I can’t imagine mine away.”

Romulus leaned back in his chair.

“You’re wrong, Logan, and I know because I’ve been trying to imagine mine away for a long time,” he said softly before suddenly sitting up, summoning himself a warm and generous meal. “Well, goodness knows we can't debate _that_ when we’re going over this report.”

“We certainly can't.” Logan summoned a snack, just some strawberries and cream. 

“What’s it on?”

He shrugged, probably saying something like “It’s just on the rainforest, that’s all.”

He had, at most, three point four minutes before Romulus figured out the problem. Three point four minutes to familiarize himself with the human being sitting across from him…

It wasn’t enough, but really, what would an apology have been worth?

  
  


* * *

Roman wasn’t sure what he meant by _more time._

(He meant it the way it sounded, actually. Indefinite, not really having much of an explanation or reason behind it. That ought to cover him until Logan said otherwise, and it certainly covered him enough to give Logan time to sink out until Roman was left in an empty room.)

Did he expect him to be _grateful?_

Stupid Roman. Expecting people to just thank him for doing something that decent human beings did.

Out of instinct, Roman went to go check on Patton, who was sculpting something out of modelling-clay in the living room, and on Virgil, who was staring out the window at the flowers and fruits on an apple-tree. He wasn’t sure if that was normal. He wasn’t sure _what_ the other Sides did when Thomas didn’t need them, to be honest. Roman was doing things like going on grand and epic quests and setting up life-plans and fun creative endeavors for Thomas, and the others… well, what?

He stopped just outside Logan’s door.

What could have changed in the last five minutes to warrant it, anyways?

What he needed was to go talk to someone. He needed Remus, whose presence was like a salve on a sword-wound.

Remus, however, was busy, and if there was one thing that Roman hated more than being too imposing upon his darling dandelion, it was feeling redundant.

Damn it, he was bored. (More than being bored, he reminded himself as he made his way to the common room. He was unhappy.)

Unhappiness made no sense in times like these.

“What’re you looking like a sad sack for?”

Roman jolted, spinning around to see him standing up from behind a sofa. Hands in yellow gloves twined around each other— Roman counted six— a hat was playfully cocked on the person’s head, and a smile and scales caught the light pouring in through the window. There Deceit was.

“I’m not sad,” Roman said, more than a little defensively.

“Sorry, my mistake,” clarified Deceit, “you look perfectly rosy. Why not go to your kingdom? ...Sorry, your principality? I’m presuming you talked to whale-dick over there.”

“You’ve been spending time with Remus, I see.”

“Yes, sorry, he's absolutely corrupted me. I mean Logan. How cruel was he?” Deceit's expression soured. “If he hurt you, I’ll make him sorry.”

“He didn’t— ugh. What do you need?”

“I’m here because I spoke with Remus about what he was going to do, and I’d like to speak with you about it as well.”

Roman summoned himself a cup of hot cocoa. He settled down as Deceit got himself some wine.

“I didn’t get the chance to congratulate you personally,” he admitted, hissing a bit on the _s_ sound in _chance_ and _personally_. “A fine match for you… though, admittedly, an unexpected one.”

_“Please_ don’t say you had a secret crush on me, I’m literally three seconds away from snapping as is.”

“Of course not,” said Deceit, his cheeks turning a slight pink. “I simply didn’t expect you to be with him.”

“Then who?”

He barely even parted his lips to say “Logan”.

It was Roman’s turn to blush, and to shut his eyes as a wave of pleasant, pre-Split memories came over him. He was able to disguise it as indignation and shocked laughter. “That isn’t the stupidest thing you’ve said, but that’s horribly close!”

“Right. I’m sorry for thinking it. After his cruelty…”

“He wasn’t cruel. I told him that since he knew what was coming in the meeting— he knew that Remus and I were going to announce our, er…”

“Relationship?”

“I was going to say our love story that would make Brutus and Cassius look like a bunch of loveless liars with a penchant for perjury, but yes, our relationship.” Roman sighed, looking into his hot cocoa. The whipped cream on top was melting in. “I told him that I needed more time.”

“...Uh, what exactly for?”

“To figure out how I feel about him, I guess? I mean, he’s my friend and all! It’s just that I’m angry—”

_“_ I know you’re not angry. Don’t try to lie to a baron of beguiling.”

“I’m not trying to lie!”

Now it was Deceit’s turn to look puzzled. “In that case… if you’re really angry, then why didn’t you respond how you usually do? Shouting, namecalling, all that sort of thing?”

“Oh, pardon me! I didn’t know you were the king of the bitch squad!”

“Hearing you say that _definitely_ didn’t just take five years off my lifespan. I just think that if you’re going to involve yourself with the most honest Sides, like Logan and Remus—”

“I’m not _involved_ with Logan.”

“Mind out of the gutter, now, Princey. If you’re going to _associate_ with them, you might as well get used to not deceiving yourself.”

“Well, thanks for the thought, Deceit. Want me to burn some incense in your honor?”

“Of _course_ I’m asking for your praise,” he snapped back, “because good things _always_ happen when I ask for people’s praise— just answer the question. What did you need the time for?”

Roman sighed. “Look, I… I think I know why he was uncomfortable, really. It’s not because we’re brothers or anything. I think he still sees Romulus.”

Janus froze. 

When he was able to speak again, it was only in the form of “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, just… how Remus was acting, and there’s only one person that we don’t really talk about, you know?”

“You don’t talk about Romulus?”

“There’s not much to say,” he murmured. “The Split wasn’t like we both remember the same thing. He got the worst memories of Romulus. The shame, the horrible relationship with everything around him, the fighting… I got the adventures, how Logan and I made up, the happy times. Hell, the last thing I remember is that he kissed me on the cheek, and the next thing I knew, my name wasn’t Romulus anymore! Kinda a sore topic when you remember that and he remembers being cut in half.”

“So—?”

“ _So_ we’re not bound to what he thinks, that’s all. He had no right trying to play with our feelings like that, knowing what would happen and knowing he’d panic.”

“He didn’t know he’d panic—”

“And if he did? What if he did that just to manipulate us?”

“Since _when_ does Logan manipulate people?”

“I don’t know! I… I don’t know. What if he doesn’t see _me?_ What if he just sees him?”

“Logan’s been seeing you as yourself since before you had a name of your own.”

Roman let out a deep threat. “Shouldn’t be as painful to hear as it is.”

“This sort of thing hurts.”

“Thanks for appearing as yourself, by the way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Janus, I know for a fact that you’ve disguised yourself as Patton more than once. That’s how Logan and I… Logan and Romulus, I mean…. Found out so much about each other, right?”

He paused.

“Yes,” he said after a while. “I'm sorry for that, but I don’t do that anymore. Not since I’m actually one of you now.”

“You’re going to tell Logan what I told you?”

“No, but I am going to ask him if he’s okay.”

Well, they both knew how that would go. Logan was off somewhere, wherever that was, either reading something to distract himself, engaging in something rather unsavory, or looking for the gift that Romulus hadn’t gotten around to revealing to him. Janus would ask him _Logan, are you okay?_ and Logan would smile in a way that looked nothing like him and whisper _I’m fine._

Roman would believe it, mostly.

* * *

Logan knew that the twins weren’t the King. They kept on acting like he couldn’t tell the difference (if he couldn’t, at least there’d be a good reason to feel this way!), they acted like he was a stupid piece of shit, but no, he could remember as much as anyone did that Romulus was _different._

All the evidence he needed came up in every memory that Logan had of him, and _especially_ of the day that the reconciliation started.

Roman never would have looked over the papers and said “You know, this is just what you told me last time”. Remus wouldn’t have danced around words so delicately, he just would’ve said _this is just an excuse to see me again, isn’t it?_ They didn’t stand like that, or look at Logan like that, like they _knew._

“He turned in this report last week,” said Romulus, and what really made Logan go off-kilter was that he was _right._ “You think just because I’m Creativity, I don’t know what a _schedule_ looks like when he doodles in his planner all the time?”

“Well, I. I wanted to verify that you had gotten it.”

“Honesty suits you better. If you want to talk to me, just say so.”

“Why would I want to talk with...?”

“You ought to tell me, I’ve no idea.”

Logan glanced back at the papers. It was just the same report from last week. Right, what was he thinking? How could he have been so stupid?

But wasn’t it worth it, just being with him for those three minutes? It was worth any kind of resentment he got from his fellow Side, any kind of lecture—

“There are better ways to get an audience with a lover than petty insults, Logan.” 

_“Excuse_ me?”

Romulus hummed a low tune, tracing a heart onto the wood. For a moment, Logan wanted nothing more than to run over there and move his hand away, stop it from tapping away when he felt so broken…

He _wanted_.

“That’s so horribly untrue,” hissed Logan, but then Romulus let out a little laugh, a sardonic grin on his face.

Something about the disdain in his smile made Logan feel small, but combined with the care in his eyes, like he really didn’t mean to hurt him…

It felt _good_ to be looked at with that much care.

“You’re laughing,” Logan said weakly.

“Sorry. But c’mon, it’s not good to lie over something like that. Can’t you tell me what you want? Why you’d come here to show me something you’ve got to know you’ve shown me before?”

_“No._ I can’t tell you because you already know, and I’m… I’m not going to _feel_ over a game like that. I’m not something for you to be horrible to and then just...”

The smile faded completely.

Why didn’t Logan want it to?

Romulus sighed, reaching to put his hand on his shoulder, silently asking for permission. When Logan gave a tiny nod, he eased his hand to meet him.

There was a tiny hole in Logan’s cotton-and-rayon shirt, just a little bit of a moth-worn spot on his shoulder, but when Romulus’ skin touched Logan’s, it was as if a hot ember had landed there. So much warmth. It wasn’t supposed to hurt, he wasn’t supposed to want more, and he shouldn’t have been mouthing _thank you._

“I’m so sorry for everything I said to you,” Logan managed to say first.

“I’m sorry, too. So very sorry. Even if I hadn’t known about your wants. Fuck, Logan, I didn’t mean…. I didn’t mean to make you feel this way.”

“I’m not feeling anything.”

“You are. You are, and that’s okay. That’s important. Logical decisions involve your feelings, that’s a part of people. How long have you been trying to run from this?”

“Too long.”

“I think I know what you want from me,” he murmured, “and it’s to get to know me better. But not in the way that I’d presume. Is that correct?”

“It’s a bit more...personal, what I’m asking for,” he managed to say.

“I’m more than happy with it.” His lips barely moved.

“...You think I’m—?”

“Don’t think this changes anything between us, but if you want—”

“Consider this my saying so.”

Words beyond that were unnecessary. Romulus’ fingers clasped around Logan’s collar. A tug, some pressure, something soft against his lips, a pulse between them as arms wrapped around his waist and some sensation descended over him, a rain of starlight from the golden bough.

Logan used his yearning to commit every bit of radiance and unfamiliarity and _anger_ to memory, trying to cement him in this world, but it was futile. Hatred. He could hang on to his hatred, couldn’t he?

Maybe.

A cloak was thrown unceremoniously onto the table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> planning on updating for roman's birthday but unfortunately my sleep schedule is literally 6 pm-3am so that boat sailed. :c forgive me roman  
> a special thank you to anyone who's commented/kudosed/bookmarked, you are literally the best. honestly though, i'm just happy that you're all here. thank you so much for reading!!


	7. must we forget the duke?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remus and Logan try to piece together their thoughts and feelings, but end up happening to the same conclusion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: this is a remus-centered chapter, so typical remus thoughts will occur. Other than that, discussed use of harmful substances, discussion of harmful habits (these former two are kept vague, so please exercise caution), a character self-harming, tending to injury/blood, dream sequence, stream-of-consciousness and use of first/second person, fire/cyanide/poisoning mentions, body horror/injury.

Logan checked, double-checked, and triple-checked the lock before breaking down.

Someone was knocking. Someone was knocking and asking if he was okay, and he wasn’t sure whether it was worth checking who. He tried to steady his breathing as he looked at the small, begging-to-shatter glass globe that he kept on the counter.

 _If you want to avoid getting hurt,_ said that all-too-condescending voice in his head, _seek knowled—_

He stopped that figurative train of thought with a shout and his hand descending on the globe.

Everything hurt. He shouldn’t have done that. Everything hurt, his hand blossoming into pain. Well, maybe Remus would enjoy it. Would he find some sick schadenfreude in the way that Logan was hurting?

It didn’t matter.

He was still shouting, without reservation, without anything behind it. 

Logan had already done his mourning for Romulus. No, it was that he missed them. He missed Roman and Remus, missed being able to look at them without feeling so wrong, so horrible….

How long had this been going on, even? How long had he been so upset?

“What the fuck, Logan?”

Logan didn’t know how to react, just keeling back and forth as he stared at his bleeding hand. Some glass was still stuck in there. He couldn’t tell who the Side was, but his voice sounded like it had all of Patton’s care and Virgil’s anxiousness—

A hand reached for his, a hand with a black ruffle on the sleeve…

That was _Remus._

“What do you want?”

“For you to feel better, you dummy,” he muttered as he got Logan over to the coffee-maker. The water was kept on ‘warm’, but Logan had forgotten to include any coffee, so Remus supposed this would work. He dipped his finger in it to test the water; when it was deemed an acceptable temperature, he gestured for Logan to sit down.

“If you want to clean my wound so badly, Remus,” he whispered, “it’d be much more sanitary to summon a first-aid kit.”

“First-aid-kit it is!” Remus snapped his fingers to reveal a crate that looked like it was made of some organic, pulsating thing. Opening it up with slender, slightly scratched-up fingers, he took out a bandage. “Honestly, though, you’ve gotta tell me what the actual hell’s happening with you, Lo-gander.”

“I’m not sure,” he tried to say. “...All right, well, maybe I’m a bit isolated, but I…”

“Why’d ya break it?”

“An accident.”

“Look. I’ve broken my fair share of things to know that this is on purpose.”

Logan didn’t say anything.

“Do you want me to help you clean?” Remus asked as he picked up a sterile bandage-pad, dabbing on some hydrogen peroxide and applying it to the wound. “Your room, I mean.”

“Why would you ask that?”

“‘Cause it’s not in the best of shape, and I don’t know if you can snap all this away.”

“Yes, but _why?”_

He didn’t answer for a while, taking the tweezers from the first-aid-kit and taking the glass pieces out.

“Look,” Remus murmured. “I’ve binged on literally every substance, unhealthy behavior, and weird chemical imaginable. Name it. I’ve done it.”

“It can be hard to make things work.”

“So I understand that it’s a bit tough to manage life stuff!”

“It would be such an inconvenience for you to help, though.”

“Inconvenience? Psh, nope! That’d be horribly silly! Y’know, Rom— ...er, the other Sides… helped me out when I wasn’t feeling my best.”

Maybe Remus deserved an apology for how poorly everyone botched up taking care of him that day, but Logan wasn’t the one to give it. “I don’t want the other Sides to come here.”

Remus nodded. “Yeah, that day was pretty shit, I’m not gonna lie. That’s why I’m offering to help you, so that you don’t have to let anyone know if you don’t want to.”

Logan tried not to flinch when he saw Remus approach with isopropyl alcohol. “You perform things such as this all the time!”

“Yeah, well. I’m Restricted Creativity, I’m Taboo, I’m—” 

“—Revolution and Chaos neverending, I’m perfectly aware— _agh,_ that hurts!”

“Sorry! But I heal like a mayfly, you know.”

Logan winced, curling up his fist and drawing in air through gritted teeth. Maybe it’d help to focus on logical things. “Mayflies… actually, famously, do not live very long or have impressive lifespans. I would suppose they have no healing abilities, either.”

“Psh, I mean as fast as it takes a mayfly to die. But as Logic, you’ve confined yourself to _logical_ healing, and there’s way more glass in here than I thought. Silly.” He got the pair of tweezers again and began to lift out some pieces of glass. “Tell me more about mayflies.”

“Mayflies… live for about twenty-two hours.” He threw back his head, gritting his teeth together.

Remus smiled sadly. “Go on.”

“They can only survive in clean water, which makes them an effective way to tell about pollution.”

“Don’t stop.” The last of the glass was out, now for isopropyl alcohol.

Logan was weeping now, keeping his arm resolutely still. “They take on nutrients in their nymph stage, but when they're adults, they lack a digestive system... They don’t have mouths, they just starve— they don't get anything after that, that's not even long enough to dream for anything! They live for a while and then they _starve— Fuck!_ Remus, it hurts—”

“Patton hates this part, too.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, my brave Logan, but if we want the wound to heal properly, it’s got to be done.”

 _His_ brave Logan…

He said it without even noticing.

“Luckily, nothing’s deep enough to require a stitch.” Remus bound the wound together with a butterfly-bandage.

When Remus wrapped the cohesive-binding bandage around Logan’s arm, he let out a whimper.

He could feel his warmth.

_Don’t do this. Stop thinking this._

Well, it wasn’t like he could just stop thinking something. He told everyone about the White Bear experiments, after all. Tell someone not to think about a white bear, give them sixty seconds to talk about whatever they’d like, and on average they’ve already talked by the time that the second-hand completes its circuit. 

Then maybe just let the thought die.

He didn’t know how to react except that Remus was looking at him.

Was he dissecting him? He had already half gotten the job done, right? He had some of Logan’s blood, the fetishistic bastard, what more did he want? Did he want everything to fall apart, did he want someone else to tell him the same thing that Logan had been trying to keep away for—

“Are you going to hold that against me?” asked Logan.

“How do you mean, Dicktionary?”

“Are you going to hold the fact that you helped me against me? Or against Roman..?”

“Sheesh, what’s your problem?”

“I simply do not wish to take too much from you, that’s all.”

“Oh, that’s a stupid train of thought.”

“It isn’t, it’s a valid concern of mine.”

“Well… That night that you came to help me,” murmured Remus. “No ill will, right?”

“None.”

“You don’t hold that against me.”

“Why would we even hold it against you? You didn’t do anything to us… besides scaring the figurative waste from us.”

“Well, that’s just it. I scared you. Gross stuff was all down my shirt, I was weeping and it was easy to convince anyone watching that I was dead, if I wanted to. But you didn’t judge me.”

“Well, no. You were hurting.”

“Exactly. Except you’re literally hurting!” Remus snapped his fingers. “Literally hurting. You’re literally bleeding! And that’s not okay, that’s not an okay thing to do to absolutely anyone! Especially someone you care about.”

“I want you to know that there’s nothing wrong with asking for help, too.”

Remus sat down, scoffing. “Look, I know that you’re just trying to return this favor, but it’s not exactly a favor. I get that you’re trying to turn my pages and all, but maybe you _shouldn’t_ turn some pages… I’m making no sense, am I?”

“I don’t think you have any pages. Other than the books you own.”

“Just because someone does something nice doesn’t mean that they deserve something nice.”

“Of course you do.” Logan reached out a hand before yelping in pain. “Fuck! It hurts.”

Remus nodded, stepping over and checking the coffee maker. “Want some coffee?”

“No, I want you to be mad..”

“I’m not mad.”

“But you have feelings about this, don’t you?”

“Logan, you can’t convince me to hate you!” Remus grinned. “You know that, right? I’m not as pissed as you want me to be by your mere existence.”

The coffee was done.

“I’m tired of people doing things for me,” murmured Logan. “I want to do something for you, you realize.”

“If you want to do something for me, then go ahead. I like tendons.” Remus grinned. “Here’s your brew, you piece of shit.”

That was a compliment in Remus’ world, wasn't it? “Thank you, you figuratively-reeking mess.”

“I’m the mess?! You’re the one that just realized that he left his weird calendar on the floor.”

Logan swivelled quickly around, only to be stopped by Remus’ laughter.

“Oh! I’m sorry, that was— that was just too much, I don’t think that I’ve ever laughed harder this week!”

“You laughed harder when Patton accidentally followed a recipe for a dangerous chemical.”

“It was funny because he didn’t get hurt. But seriously, the coffee’s good. Try it.”

“How did you know the way I like it?”

Remus scoffed. “I pay attention to when Patton does it.”

The metaphorical catch was that this was nothing like how Logan liked it, at least, not at first. It tasted different from how Romulus made it. Instead of being rich, bitter, and sweet all at once, this just tasted of spite and shame. 

Logan drank it down in a few gulps, because it tasted good and he wasn’t used to this kind.

“Well,” said Remus, “I’ve got to go. Life does have its arrow and it’s got to impale a civilian or two.”

* * *

Remus wasn’t the most coherent Side there was. His mind was an assemblage of this-and-that. Even so, he remembered how the King was, how Logan was…

Fuck, could he have not been left a better legacy?

“You were an asshole,” he said to the portrait of Romulus hanging in their room. Roman was sleeping on the bed. “Hey, babe. Wanna go for a time?”

“Mph.”

“What’s eating ya?”

“Mmphh.” Roman rolled over. “I don’t know. I’m just unhappy.”

“Oh, poor thing.”

“There’s blood on your hand. Why?”

“Logan.”

“He’s bleeding? Did he hurt himself?

“Nope!” _Lie._ “I hurt my hand knocking.” _Lie lie lie._

“Thank goodness.” He got into bed next to him, pretending not to notice when Roman turned away. “What are you thinking about?”

“Thomas’ callback. Can you think about what Hollywood would be like now?”

Remus knew when Roman was lying.

His heart hurt for him.

He ached for him. 

“Did you talk with him?” asked Remus. “That slender tree-spirit from the Imagination, I mean. We have that kinda arrangement, so I wondered...”

“Yeah.” Liar.

“Any good?”

“Wonderful.” Liarliarliar-

Might as well ask him how the weather was, at this rate.

Remus wanted to reach forward. They were fine just a few days ago, weren’t they?

Well, then again, it was Remus’ fault, because he was the one with the gross thoughts and feelings! This was just a resurgence of them.

God, his mind was a mess. Images with no cohesive tissue, no real personhood, swarmed into his brain. He was Remus in the thoughts, and he _wasn't_ Remus, and he was a usurper in Remus' skin, and he was half the man he used to be...

Best to just enjoy the show.

What was he thinking about?

A slice down the belly and a love story to last the ages. Trapped in a house with white walls and dirty carpet and something about the room looks unfinished. Fibreglass. The timbre’s showing, someone is hammering away, some music is playing in a different language and the house is filling with cyanide.

A fire is about to start. Remus is sitting on the stairs and a fire’s about to start. Roman is whispering things into his ear and his leg is pressed into his lap. It’s not comfortable, it’s just making Remus’ legs fall asleep. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Liar liar liar, he memorized them from _A History of Literature From The British Isles._

Trying to return the compliment is a bit like mixing pine-sap and trying to cover a puzzle in it. Everything sticks. He should make this thought happy. By God, he has a reputation to keep!

Logan was studying when I came in the first day. Romulus had been planning to give him a locket, you know, and it’s still in my pocket. Right next to that little scar on my thigh. Would you believe I wanted to give it to him? I was walking to his room but I saw Janus walking away after trying and failing to break down his door, then I heard him shout.

The key to the past? Throw that shit away, you can always pick the locks. Roman sure does pick your locks, doesn’t he? Into your heart, I mean. Well, no, you open the door for him if he wants to see your heart. No, it’s Logan that sees. He sees and sees and some music is playing in a different language and the house is filling with cyanide.

Remus felt his hands slide over his chest, only to find that there was nothing there. There was a pit from Adam’s apple to navel, and nothing filled it, and it was leaking pine-sap. Pine-sap was all over Roman’s heart.

He reached for another person, reached for a thing made of glass and isopropyl— 

  
  
  


“What are you thinking about, love?”

Remus woke up in a room filled with bluish half-darkness. Roman’s features mouthed the question again, which Remus knew despite the fact that they were both facing their respective walls.

A shadow of a cat danced on the wall.

The buzzing of a mayfly flitted about the room.

Remus opened his mouth. No sound left his lungs, nor did air enter them. Fish out of water?

Roman cleared his throat to repeat himself, though it was unnecessary. “What are you—”

“Eh, nothing too important.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me? trying stream-of-consciousness? it's more likely than you think. feel free to @ me for it, I'm trying something new so it might or might not work.  
> sorry for sparse updates! I'm planning out my other fics at the moment. stay great, y'all-- from the lurkers to the commenters, you all are sensational and i'm glad you're here.


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